It's time to start using your brain for something useful again

We all need something to feel good about, or we’d blow our brains out.

That’s “human nature.” Since we now live in times when every other day we are bombarded with bad stuff, we need to do something to protect ourselves. One day it’s an avalanche that killed five snowboarders, and the next day it’s a bombing in Boston, a pile-up on route Interstate 16, an earthquake, a tornado, a forest fire, or a story about 800,000 Rwandans brutally murdered by a neighboring tribe or government. There seems to be no end to it. I find that after doing my own “feel good” thing, I feel better about myself, and it helps me forget about the bad stuff we hear about and see on a daily basis. Pick your “feel good” from the following partial list: Volunteer in hospitals or nursing homes. Running or walking for

Breast cancer research, eliminating leukemia, etc., rescuing dogs or cats, feeding kids who go to bed hungry every night, saving our trees, selling Girl Scout cookies, holding up car-wash signs and washing cars, wearing a funny hat at traffic lights while holding a cup for donations, driving around with a ribbon or two pasted on the back of your car, candlelight vigils and leaving flowers and notes on a fence, and ___________ (enter your favorite cause here).

You get the picture because you’re not stupid! In addition to all of this, we’ve accepted the fact that our news media is not giving us all of the the news. Some of us are shocked when we find out that after 9/11, 140 Saudi Nationals were secretly flown out of the usa, or that the World Trade Centers were not built to New York City building codes, which is why they collapsed (and which is why the victims families were paid millions to keep them quiet), Or that we give political asylum to oppressed people who go back to their homeland for vacations. Even though we hear these kind of things, we continue keeping ourselves in a “feel good about myself” mode. We make up words and phrases to hide behind so’s not to have to deal with the reality of what we are hearing. We use words like “conspiracy theory,” fascist, or “right wing gun nut” in order to not have to deal with that which we’ve just heard, and we can go right on feeling good about ourselves. Get smart, people! Look in the mirror !

Ask yourself, “Is this really what I do ?” You’ve got a brain. Start using it again. That will absolutely make you feel good. Tune in next time when i discuss “denial.”